Ok, now that you’re back, in The Girl in the Tower, we are led by Vasya, a young Russian noble girl with the heart of a wild thing and wisdom well beyond her years, on her journey to live the life of freedom she has always longed for by traveling the road as a boy. In historic medieval Russian, we are swept into a fairytale world filled with battles for the lives of young girls, bandits, false identities, a reunion with an old adversary, political intrigue, and a foe older and more powerful than Vasya can imagine.

I LOVED THIS BOOK! From start to finish I was completely absorbed into this world. Arden has such an amazing talent for storytelling that I could hardly put this book down. She takes a very real and cruel world filled with religious zealotry, sexist oppression, hard living conditions, and real fear of war and sews into that fabric a world of magic and enchantment invisible to almost everyone. The way Arden tells a story is reason enough for me to want to devour anything she writes. I would probably read her grocery list if she published it.

The book goes back and forth through the perspective of Vasya, her brother Sasha, her sister Olga, and once or twice that bastard, I mean, priest, Konstantin. Vasya is one of my favorite characters possibly ever and I loved seeing the magic in the world through her eyes but at the same time, I was pulled into the world even farther when seeing the “real” world from the other characters points of view when the drama was unfolding (and boy was there drama). I don’t want to spoil anything so you’ll have to find out for yourself what that drama is.

Overall, The Girl in the Tower is exactly what I had hoped it would be. A fairytale set in the real world with drama, love, and redemption. The next, and final (my heart clenches to write that!) installment in this trilogy, The Winter of the Witch, comes out in summer 2018 (unless delayed) and I can’t wait to get my hands on it! A full 5 out of 5 stars for The Girl in the Tower! I’ve included affiliate links to each book so you can catch up!